


All In Good Time

by speakgreektome (epicionly)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, M/M, liverpepper au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 11:50:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5455505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epicionly/pseuds/speakgreektome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The twins were premature births.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All In Good Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yourhandiheld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourhandiheld/gifts).



> For Jay, who has my love. Set in her [Liverpepper universe](http://liverpepper.tumblr.com).

It’s hard to be a new parent. Cloud might not fit the definition, never mind not exactly have been there for the birthing, but he at least knows what it’s like by first-hand experience. He’s there when Leon can’t be, and he’s there when Leon can. He brings changes of clothes and food to the hospital when Leon is there at the NICU watching the two babies with their wires and their alarms. He goes to the NICU himself in his off hours, watching and thinking how small they look, praying, and pacing. They’re so small. They’re too early.

 _Please_ , Cloud thinks desperately, _please keep on._

Some kind of miracle promises that they do. And they do.

Once the twins are out, they spend more time lost in a flurry of doctor’s appointments until something clicks and something seems to be getting better for them. Cloud spends more nights at Leon’s place or at Aerith’s place or even Cid’s place than his own apartment that even Zack barely frequents these days. He learns how to change diapers and mix formula and test bottles and rock babies, wipe down gums with wet gauze, that most of the rashes that appear on the twins’ skin is supposed to be normal. He’s _fine_ with the idea that he’s doing all of these things, he’s been _fine for a while, Leon_ , with all of this, even if Leon still looks dumbstruck when Cloud opens the door for him while he’s fumbling for his keys.

Leon comes home exhausted work today like all other days, and stumbles past him to make sure the twins are okay. Most people would apply for leave, but most people aren’t Leon, and they haven’t seen the depths of Leon’s determination to raise two sons as his own. Haven’t known his grief, his fear, all a product of those months past.

Leon _wants_ to provide. Wants to give. Wants to take care of. Leon takes so much responsibility for other people and he always has, in his own kind of gruff, grunting and snarly attitude-filled way. Cloud’s not sure why anyone would think he’s boring at all with how much he gives. Maybe it comes with having two sisters; maybe it comes from being the middle child. Maybe it just comes from Leon.

It’s good either way that Aerith bullies Leon into at least taking a half-leave, but Cloud suspects that he’s still doing as much as work as he can so he can have enough money. It’s about money; diapers and food and everything else. Leon wants a house for the two of them—but they’re babies, dammit, Leon, they’re babies, and when they’re older they’ll care, but if you’re dead before they are, how are they going to know?

There’s some fights, of course. Cloud prays that his own irritation, Leon’s own sharp responses, and the culminating sleep debt and growing stress and the onset fear and worry won’t erupt into another one tonight.

“They’re fine,” Cloud tells him, but Leon still hasn’t gotten over the fear of losing them; they were premature births, and it came with breathing tubes, intensive care, hospital everyday for several months until they were well enough to take home. “Leon.” Cloud grasps his arm with one hand, curls his fingers around the back of Leon’s neck, thumbs at it, even as Leon stares down at the crib. “They’re fine. I promise.”

“Do they still have a fever?” Leon croaks, as he stares at their sleeping faces. He’s still thinking of the NICU. He’s still thinking about everything.

“They’re supposed to,” Cloud tells him, and turns Leon’s so that he’s looking at him. “Leon.” Leon’s eyes are still looking at Sora and Roxas. “Twenty-four hours after the immunizations. The fever is normal. Come on.”

Some nights, this works. Some nights, it doesn’t. This night it does.

Leon has to be dragged away bodily at first, but Cloud just murmurs, “Shower, okay? Take a shower,” and that’s when Leon snaps into the orders, even though he’s exhausted when Cloud pushes newly laundered towels into his arms. By the time Cloud comes back from the kitchen, Leon’s still in the bathroom, and the water is running. He knocks, to check that Leon’s still awake, and that’s when the door opens.

“Food’s in the kitchen,” Cloud tells him, “the baby monitor’s on. I’ll check on them, you eat, okay?”

“Cloud,” Leon manages out, and Cloud says, “Go.” Leon doesn’t move for a moment until Cloud says it again, and then he’s stumbling.

When he comes back to check on him, Leon’s fallen asleep at the table, fork at the side, the pasta still warm from the microwave with only one or two bites eaten from it. Cloud draws a blanket from the couch where he left it last, and tosses it over Leon’s shoulders. He’ll wake him up in an hour, he promises, as he cleans up.

If it’s hard for Cloud to be exhausted even with the Materia, he can’t imagine what it must be like for Leon, who puts everything first and everything busy and piles and piles up everything until it’s all done with. It speaks so much about all of the premature books stacked up in his house; the ones that teach about NEC and PIC line and ROP and cerebral palsy and ng tubes and everything in between.

He coaxes Leon up an hour and a half later, lets him see the twins, and shoves him into bed. Leon is catching naps where he can. Cloud just wants him to stop thinking, just wants him to trust that his sons are doing better than they were in that hospital, that things will be okay.

“Leon,” he says, though Leon isn’t speaking, is only looking at him. “They’ll be okay.”

“You can’t promise me that.”

It’s the first thing Leon really has ever said, or spoken up against it, and Cloud grits his teeth and surprises himself with how gentle his own touch is. How he strokes Leon’s neck with his hand, how he says, “I can’t, so let me hold you,” surprised at how wet his own voice sounds, and even further surprised about how Leon does.

Only the tightness of Leon’s arms betray him, and they only loosen slightly when he falls asleep with his forehead in Cloud’s collarbone. Cloud looks up into the light cast in through the blinds of the windows. This moment is what he’ll remember years down the line when he tries to remember what it was like; in between the realms of just exhaustion and wakefulness and just the knowledge how useless anything is, about how they can only just try, and hope, and pray, and perhaps it’ll all come together.

It does, when the twins start gaining weight. When they start resembling children their age, when they’re the _right_ weight, when everything seems like it’s going well and it does.

It does, and Cloud has never been more grateful.

They grow up healthy, Sora and Roxas. Healthy, though Leon still has a heart attack once in a while and still gets suspicious and still wants to make sure they’re okay.

Albums fill up with them. Cloud notices a difference between the pictures that were taken at their birth, and the pictures in the photo albums. Lively, energetic boys. They’re healthier than healthy, and it’s all Cloud can be grateful for, that these two have grown up so strong, so happy, and laugh like other kids their age and go out and play. Cloud notices a difference beween Leon’s smiles; they grow brighter, they grow more open.

But sometimes, Cloud will spot Leon at the twins’s doorway. It’s something he does once in a while, in the nights he can’t sleep. Cloud’s Materia still keeps him awake, so it isn’t abnormal to come across Leon who cracks open the door to hear them snoring, then closes it. To watch Leon rest his forehead against the door and listen, hands shaking. He does this often.

This worry.

Leon always worries.

Some nights, Cloud leaves him alone. Other nights, he doesn’t.

 Tonight, Cloud steps up beside him, and curls his hand over Leon’s.

“Leon,” he murmurs, and pulls that hand up and brushes his mouth against the knuckles. “They’re okay.”

Leon turns to look at him, looks back at the doorway.

“They’re okay,” Cloud repeats, and thumbs those knuckles.

Leon doesn’t answer.

“They’re okay,” Cloud says, promises, because he _can_ promise this now.  “They’re okay, and they’ve been okay for a very long time.”

“God,” Leon says, and his voice is shaking, and he loves them so, so much, and anybody else who says otherwise doesn’t know anything. “ _God._ ”

He comes back to bed, eventually. But he’ll let Cloud hold him like he did that night, and Cloud knows what he’s thinking. He’s thinking back to the NICU, and he’s thinking about the twins in their bedroom, and he’s thinking, he’s always thinking.

Cloud presses his lips against Leon’s brow, and doesn’t really know what else to do.

But it’s enough, maybe. All of this.

Enough.


End file.
